Some of you may have read my post the other day about “Trump Straws.” This is a short follow-up to that particular post, so I hope you’ll forgive me as the historian comes out to write.

There was a time in the United States where concern over waste was of the utmost importance. Granted, plastic wasn’t the issue of the time – the United States was fighting a horrid war against the Empire of Japan and Nazi Germany. This fight required ammunition, tanks, vehicles, guns, and food. It was a time of total war, and the American citizenry was asked to help fight that war by…can you guess?

Reducing waste!

The US government called on its people to hold drives for scrap metal, to grow their own food in “Victory Gardens,” to live on ration cards which severely limited what one could buy at the grocery store. Even bacon grease was of vital importance – (save the bacon grease to help make ammunition)! These were the days when Coca-Cola bottles could be recycled for a few cents, when the milk man picked up your old glass bottles rather than having them broken and discarded in a trash heap.

We are not in a state of total war today; the government is not asking us to help fight anyone or anything by recycling and reducing waste. I simply wanted to point out in this post that at one point, it was quite an American thing to do. So let’s stop labeling things as “liberal” and “conservative” simply to inflame people who we see as “the others.” Let us bring civil discussion and disagreement back to our society.

We need civility and open communication more than we need anything else. Quit letting mass media and politicians pull us apart.

Please.